Two things I've learned from my son's 12 years on the swim team

This week, our son, W, competed in the last swim meet of his high school career.

My husband grew up in San Diego and swimming in the ocean has always been an important part of his life - he surfed in high school, but less to ride the waves than to paddle out over the waves, where he could straddle his board and look at the horizon and feel simultaneously centered and connected. It was imperative to him that each of our children were comfortable in the ocean. All three of them were initiated by the time they were four months old. Perhaps our babies were still new enough to the world that when Dad held their little bodies, his hands surrounding the entirety of their trunks and dunked them under the salty waves, they experienced a kind of return to the watery warmth of the womb. The emphasis was for the kids to love the water, to be able to read the waves, to feel respect for its strength, and be comforted by its lull. Competitive swimming was not the aim.

We moved to Taiwan when W, our firstborn, started first grade at a new school (the same K-12 school I had graduated from). A chance opportunity landed him in the pool to try out for the after school swim program. Coaches assessed from the poolside, while parents watched from an upper floor balcony overlooking the indoor pool. W was seven years old, so skinny there was no difference in circumference between his thighs and calves. We watched him splash the length of the pool, which felt interminably long. When he climbed out, his face was wet and bright. We didn't know what the criteria was for making the team and had no expectations that he would. But as we waited for him outside the locker rooms, one of the coaches came over and said to us, "Your kid? Not the fastest." We smiled and nodded. "But," he continued, "he's got heart." And that was how W joined the swim program and started his swim career.

The first thing I learned from W being on the swim team was that "having heart" is more important than talent or technique or a capacity to win.

W wanted to quit swimming multiple times throughout his lower school years. I would have softened and acquiesced, but my husband asked him to stick it through until the end of fifth grade. He told W that in middle school, he could stop swimming if he still felt the same way. To our surprise, not only did W continue swimming in middle school, he asked to train outside of school on the weekends and over the summer.

The "heart" that the coach recognized in W back in first grade can often be translated into a harried excitement in the way he goes about things - W eats voraciously and quickly, he bangs and charges through the house, he does not like to be late or do things slowly. I don't know much about swim techniques, but I could see this aptly described W's swim style in middle school. Frustrated that his times weren't improving as dramatically as he hoped, even with extra training on the weekends, W asked his outside coach, "How do I swim faster?"

"Swim slower," was his coach's answer.

This answer sounds like a Buddhist koan - puzzling and seemingly counterintuitive. Until you stop to think about what it might mean. Swim slower - really be present in each stroke, stretching out one's arms, reaching for the other side of the pool, kicking one's legs with intention, instead of flailing and splashing in a frenzy. Swim slower - glide through the water, flow with the water, rather than work against it.

The second thing I learned from W's time on the swim team was the idea of presence, embodied by the physical practice of swimming. To be wholly present is to move slowly through water - and the world - with intention and "now-ness;" to understand that the only moment that matters is the one happening right now. What W's coach wanted him to do was to complete each stroke to its fullest and if he could do that - swim slowly, with grace and presence of mind and body - then he would swim faster.

In high school, W was on the varsity swim team all four years - he may not be the fastest swimmer, but in my eyes, he has become the most elegant. This year - his last - he took the helm as co-captain and led the team to a silver medal.